I Have No Comment On The Matter
by InnocentGuilt
Summary: Spock has 50 secrets and Nyota keeps them to herself. Spock/Uhura, mentions of Kirk/McCoy and Chekov/Sulu. Randomness and happiness galore. Part of the Butterfly 'Verse.


Disclaimer: If Star Trek were mine…there would probably be no awesomeness involved…like at all. It would just be a ridiculous retelling of high school with the Star Trek characters and all of their hotness. Yeah…

A/N: This was also written with my cousin. She is actually the brains behind this. I just mashed the keyboard angrily and did her bidding like a good little servant.

One:

His favorite Terran book is The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer. His mother used to read one of the moralistic stories to him during his ritual for bed each night, and he would listen with enthusiasm he says he could only attain during childhood. He speaks of the way she would attempt to bring the story to life for him, and he concludes that that is a product of her teaching human children for many years before she met his father. The stories were never alive for him, but as he reads to her one of his favorite tales, Nyota can hear his mother leaking through his voice, altering his tones and inflections just enough so that it brings the story of a little Vulcan and his mother to life for her.

Two:

Spock doesn't tell Nyota this; so much as it's so incredibly obvious to her, and apparently only her. However, ruffling Doctor McCoy's feathers is somewhat of a match of wits, a pitting of factual logic to impressionistic emotion. He enjoys these debates. He enjoys the way McCoy's face turns dark when they start their arguments. He even enjoys the fact that he has imprinted the two sides of his heritage against each other in the only artistic expression he can present.

Three:

He will never admit it, but there are times when he just lets Kirk win their chess matches. She can tell when he does it. His hand (long and slender) hesitates over a chess piece, before he moves a different one, using reverse strategy to lose on purpose. She always smiles at him afterward, when they're safe in his quarters (warm and almost stifling despite the fact that she grew up in the African heat), and tells him that every once in a while, Kirk needs his ass handed to him, and that he shouldn't hold back. It's sometimes so easy to forget that, besides her as his lover, Kirk is his only friend.

Four:

Spock has an affection for felines, even going so far as to have kept one whilst he was on Earth. It was a small calico female. He called her Soliel, despite the fact that she was nothing like the sun. He spoke to her as if she could understand him, though it was highly illogical and he knew that she could understand nothing but the tone in which he spoke. The first time Nyota visited his apartment (under the false pretense of debating her grade for her latest paper) she noticed that Spock let Soliel sit on his desk, even though he claimed that she was 'disrupting his grading process' and asked her kindly when he had had enough if she would 'please remove herself from his area of work.' He left her with Nyota's mother upon his return to the_ Enterprise_.

Five:

Spock can and does make jokes if anyone would care to listen for them. Nyota can't count the amount of times she's almost spit out her drink while on her lunch break, listening to Spock and Kirk talk (even in the beginning of their stilted friendship). She's had to cover her mouth in an attempt to keep her laughter to herself on the Bridge when Dr. McCoy asks something that really is kind of obvious and Spock replies in his too calm voice the perfect comeback that flies right over everyone's heads. The real clincher is when Kirk says (all haughty, losing his temper) 'Well, nobody's perfect, Spock!' and the Vulcan's neat reply is simply, 'That is your opinion, Jim.' Nyota laughs for nearly five minutes.

Six:

He listens to Mannheim Steamroller in the privacy of his quarters. He doesn't like all their music, and usually goes for the more instrumental pieces, or the Christmas remakes. He enjoys the passion they display in their music, even if it was over two centuries ago. What surprises Nyota is that he even has some of their more 'techno' beats on his PADD, including Creatures of the Night, which had been one of Gaila's favorites. When she asks him about it (tearful, though she tries to hide it) he tells her (soothingly) that Gaila was a very vivacious student, who couldn't help but share her verve with the universe.

Seven:

He has nothing but the utmost respect for his father, and for his Vulcan brethren, but there's a small part of him, a part that she equates as his mother's son and no one else's, that is relieved that he was given an excuse and the guidance not to return to the new Vulcan colony.

Eight:

Spock knits. It's his own well guarded secret. He does it randomly when he finds that meditation is not benefiting him. He likes to get lost in the tapping of the two needles that is so like the gentle tapping of a stylus against a PADD. He never wears his products, giving them away as gifts to whoever happens to be closest at the time (Nyota has four scarves, a hat, and a pair of socks, while Kirk and McCoy each have hat and scarf sets they claim as their own, and surprisingly wear when on Shore Leave).

Nine:

Spock knows how to waltz, at least three different kinds, and he had taught them all to her before one of the very first Starfleet regulated gala's that they would be forced (or as they said, highly recommended) to attend. It's unsurprising to her that he is just as effective in teaching her to dance as he is in teaching her the nuances of Vulcan language (spoken and bodily alike). He leads and she follows for the first few times together, but just as suddenly, in the confines of his warm room, he teachers her to lead and works backward so that he is following. By the time of the gala, they dance in perfect tandem, a waltz made of the three that he had taught to her, and they switch between who is the leader. The rest of the world stops to watch them as they dazzle in their Starfleet dress blues. They're impressed by the fluidity they communicate between each other. She is impressed by his unspoken vow of equality between them; something that at times he was never sure his father benefited his mother.

Ten:

He had never seen a butterfly before he set foot on Earth. It really isn't that difficult to believe. After all, there are many Terran insects that are not seen on Vulcan. It still remains that when he recounts his first meeting with the beautiful insect, there is still that wave of awe that settles in his voice. It's startling that he had never encountered them before even in pictures, but he tells her that even if he had, he did not believe that it would have prepared him for the actual creature.

Eleven:

Spock doesn't like sports. And not for the reason that most would assume. Many know that Vulcans don't like sports because they aren't academic in any way shape or form. Spock is actually very good at sports. He played a game of baseball his second year on Earth. He thinks they're actually quite academic, if one chooses to look at them in such a way. Calculating the precise distance a ball has to travel, accounting for wind speed and directionality; sports are actually very complex. What he doesn't like about them is the fact that they are too simple for him.

Twelve:

He's teaching himself how to lie. He doesn't say as much. He calls it 'failing to divulge the entire truth,' but it means the same thing.

Thirteen:

He does not like horses. It's his own irrational fear that he doesn't let anyone know about, not even Kirk. He doesn't even try to explain it to her, but Nyota can see when he gets off the mare that he was forced to ride on their way up to a camping place McCoy told them about. She's impressed to find out that Vulcans have their very own form of 'scrambling' away from something.

Fourteen:

When he was on Earth, he would send corrections he found in the daily news articles back to the company. It became so much of a regular occurrence that he and the Editor were on a first name basis, and he was even offered a spot on the team. He respectfully declined, but agreed to look over some of the articles from some of the 'grammatically disinclined' writers from time to time.

Fifteen:

Spock is humored by the fact that most of the Junior Personnel are scared of him. He keeps a secret tally in his mind of how long each one stutters, or how quickly they run off. His personal best record is 3.56 seconds, after which time the Ensign waved her arms helplessly and Kirk had to intervene, because the poor girl had ceased to make sense.

Sixteen:

Spock has been visited by the Charismatic Christians, a relatively small sector of religion that felt the need to recruit the very first Saturday afternoon that Nyota had been invited over to his apartment (as opposed to just showing up under the pretenses of arguing her scores). They requested for him to accept God into his heart so that he might 'save his soul.' Spock's reply to that was 'the purpose of the heart was to circulate blood, not house any deities' and as for saving his soul, 'Vulcans are very cautious about their _katras_,' but he thanked them for their concern.

Seventeen:

The first flower he ever gave Nyota was a cluster of Canterbury Bell's. He gave it to her just after they returned to Earth. He meant them to be an expression for his gratitude, as that's what the flowers meaning was, for helping him through his time of need, after the loss of his planet and his beloved mother. He'll never know what they meant to her beyond that, though, or how they helped her during the dark days after she realized Gaila's death.

Eighteen:

He feels a form of contempt for his father, who's older son, Sybok, rejected Vulcan teaching, and yet before the death of Amanda, considered Spock to be a disappointment for choosing to enroll in Starfleet Academy, instead of accepting his position in the Vulcan Science Academy.

Nineteen:

He loves the sound of her laughter, most laughter; in fact, he loves it when any one of his friends or close companions lets out a chortle or a full-bellied guffaw. But he loves hers specifically, having come up with 153 ways to get her to do anything from giggle to gasp for breath because she's laughing too hard.

Twenty:

Spock keeps in contact with Spock Prime, probably more than he does with his actual father. He asks for advice and counseling, and he even does the Vulcan equivalent of chatting. He likes to inquire about the progress of New Vulcan and Spock Prime inquires upon his life aboard the_ Enterprise_. Spock Prime never gives any commentary on how one life is different from the other, and it's just as well. They are all so young, Spock, Nyota, and the rest of the crew. They don't need to live under the shadow of different lives.

Twenty-one:

He was the one to tip the balance when it came to Kirk getting his position as Captain. She wasn't there, but she knows that after his briefing to the Admiralty, there were suddenly less questions and curious stares cast upon Kirk. It was like they had been assuaged of their fears, and that with the Vulcan's (even a young Vulcan) reassurance, it would be okay to let Kirk have the_ Enterprise_.

Twenty-two:

The first feelings he felt he ever fully learned to control were those of vindication. Though he will not deny, however wrong it may be, that he did feel justified when he won the scuffle over his mother's honor when he was just twelve, and the older Vulcan boys attempted (and succeeded) at eliciting an emotional response. That does not mean he condones to Kirk's sense of vindication.

Twenty-three:

His favorite color is the green of grass just after a spring rain. She realized this after scrolling through some of their pictures on their last shore leave on Earth, and stumbles upon at least seventy-five pictures of grass. Just the grass, pure and simple, and oddly beautiful for how exceedingly scientific they look. It takes her until she's on picture thirty-seven of the green sea of grass to realize that still after all his years on Earth, and seeing grass everyday that that color green is novelty to him. Vulcan didn't have grass that green and it never glowed the way it did on Earth after a spring rain.

Twenty-four:

Spock finds that when Nyota rubs lightly on the tips of his ears with just_ that_ amount of pressure, it is almost as relaxing as meditation, and by far the most soothing gesture he has ever felt from another life-form.

Twenty-five:

The sight of her in her off duty boots and various pumps 'excites' him. The different ways they encase her ankles up to her calves, and the way they mold to the form of her foot, forming different silhouettes is 'invigorating' or so he says. He has even gone as far to admit that she is very 'arousing' when she walks around in nothing but her white faux-alligator skin pumps. She tells him it's not bad to say 'horny.' He responds that 'horny is not the appropriate term for what he feels when he sees her.'

Twenty-six:

When he was a young Vulcan and his father had gone off planet he and his mother went into his room day after day, and they worked on a painting. He had it in his room in his apartment, setting against his wall. After her death, he had it framed, with a small plaque inlaid in the frame, displaying his mother's birth date and the span of time it took to make the painting. He doesn't have her death date on it (he will never need a reminder), but it has a single lily etched under the dates. When he came aboard the_ Enterprise_, he gently placed it on his wall, in his living space, where everyone could see the work he had done. Nyota looks at it carefully one afternoon when she is waiting for his return from the Science Labs. She can easily distinguish his parts from her, as he used logical geometrical designs with black, white, and gray colors, while his mother had come in behind him and added sweeping, swirly colors behind him, overlaying and overlapping his shapes. They are two different parts, showing two different words, two different people, and ultimately two different parts of one little boy, but they make one of the most beautiful paintings she has ever seen.

Twenty-seven:

Though Gaila was not his favorite Cadet in the Kobayashi Maru, she did have a specific tenacity that he had never seen in a programmer of her youth. Her music, loud enough for half the crew to hear, playing in her personal music player as she went through subroutine over subroutine, she was easily one of the most memorable. Her memorial was small, Nyota having been put in charge of it, but when Spock stood at the podium and spoke to the twenty people whom she had told where and when the memorial would be held, it was as if the world would miss her.

Twenty-eight:

Spock's mother sang_ Beyond Antares_ when his father was working in his study and she was tending to her garden. The garden was just outside his window and he would open the glass pane to hear her alto tones wafting in the arid Vulcan air. When Nyota asks what she should sing at the Talent Show, he inquires if she knows_ Beyond Antares_. She doesn't sing alto, which makes it different yet the same for him, but she keeps the same lilting and hopeful tempo that his mother did, and it's beautiful. His voice is soft and reminiscent when he tells her that after the show, and for a moment, she wonders if she can continue reliving his mother's life for him, or if she'll ever be included in his memories.

Twenty-nine:

He enjoys playing with her hair in the privacy of their quarters. He runs his fingers through it, the unique sensors of fingers his picking up textures and silkiness in a way no other person has.

Thirty:

Spock quotes Dr. Seuss randomly when most of the Senior staff is together for the monthly Not-Poker meetings. He does it on the sly, under his breath, laying down his cards muttering, blandly, 'One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish.' He says he doesn't like green eggs and ham when they talk about dinner preferences (because on these monthly Not-Poker meetings, they usually dine together, as well). And after one confusing conversation in which McCoy grouches about a Doctor Donovan Damarcus who works in the Delta quadrant, he putters out, 'David Donald Doo dreamed of doughnuts and a duck-dog, too.' The conversation has moved on by then (Kirk, in all of his astonishingly good-if-not-very-secret boyfriend mannerism, telling the doctor that it must be hard to hate everyone he meets that deeply), so no one really notices Spock's odd and seemingly out-of-character references to Seuss. The real kicker she supposes, is that he does it all in Vulcan.

Thirty-one:

He asked her to decorate his quarters for the Holiday Season. Nothing over the top, but she braided some fabrics together to drape across certain parts of his room, and brought more festive colors than he was necessarily accustomed to. Nyota supposes it wasn't necessarily 'festive,' but it was brighter during that time of year, and she used any color she could think of. There wasn't a tree, or presents, or even garland, really. Just bright fabrics, but he enjoyed it, and even hung a sprig of holly just above his couch.

Thirty-two:

He has been in a pillow fight before, with, of all people, Jim. She doesn't know exactly_ how_ it transpired, but according to Doctor McCoy, Spock won on the technicality that he hit 'a lot harder than Jim had honestly expected' (and if that doesn't expose the Doctor and Captain's relationship, she doesn't know what does).

Thirty-three:

Spock doesn't like to cook. Following the recipes is simple for him, but pitted against some of her dishes, he finds them to be quite bland. He can never quite get the intuition right. He can't simply throw in spices and have the dish be as good as Nyota's (or even Chekov's), despite what she says. In the end, he sticks to replicated dishes.

Thirty-four:

He has met with his mother's family a grand total of four time's in his entire life. They were always very kind, he relays to her, one Shore Leave, and they never made any mention of being against interracial marriage. However, he always felt that his mother's marriage to his father was a let down to them, and that his consequential birth was the final seal to her shackles.

Thirty-five:

Spock finds that Hide and Seek is actually very beneficial to the crew's tactical responses. Many away missions run the possibility of going terribly awry. He says it is logical to get the crew accustomed to noting and acquiring hiding spots as quickly as possible. If he happens to enjoy to game, well, she won't tell.

Thirty-six:

He won't use pet names. He finds them useless and frivolous. He tells her (wrapped up in his arms, below sheets, in the quiet confines of her room) that her name is precious to her, and so it is precious to him. He will never debase her name by calling her something else, Standard, Vulcan, Swahili, or otherwise.

Thirty-seven:

He walked barefoot in the grass after his mother's death, taking in the feel of the soft blades under bare feet, cataloguing the way it felt to him. It was a euphemism his mother had often spoken of. When his father would put too much pressure on him, or so she felt (and was often right about, though he didn't necessarily say that), she would tell Sarek that every one needed to 'take a walk in the grass with no shoes on every once in a while.' It was basically the equivalent of telling them to take a walk on the wild side and Spock had never understood the meaning behind it until his people had all but vanished, and it was called upon for all remaining Vulcans to come together.

Thirty-eight:

Spock can play 'Row, Row, Row Your Boat' on his lute, and does so often as a warm up before he plays for her or for a crowd. Sometimes he plays it loudly. Sometimes he does it just loud enough to where he can hear it and know that the lute is properly tuned. Either way, he always warms up with that song, and it's gotten so bad that she has it stuck in her head when she wakes up in the mornings after his performances.

Thirty-nine:

His pet_ sehlat_ was his best friend growing up. I-Chaya his name was, and he cherished it to a point that was probably more human than Vulcan, if his stories of their exploits together were anything to go by. He speaks reverently of the pet that saved his life growing up, and how it was the death of I-Chaya that swayed his choice to follow the Vulcan ways of logic, even more than his father did.

Forty:

The first time Spock had chocolate when they were together, was while Gaila was there, and Uhura was making a transmission to her mother. Gaila had been eating something from one of the planets she had been delayed on during the long trip from wherever she came from to Earth. She didn't call it chocolate, only said it was sweet and that everyone should try it. Uhura said she would try it when she was done with her transmission, but Spock had nibbled on it a few times and before she knew it, Spock was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the Communications Port, rocking back and forth jubilantly, and humming 'It's a small world.' Uhura was mortified. Gaila couldn't stop watching and trying to sneak him more chocolate behind Uhura's back. Spock doesn't remember the travesty at all, but knows that his headache was enough to stop eating anything that was classified as 'sweet' without a full diagnostic report on it.

Forty-one:

A small girl once asked Spock if he could have his ears. It was during his second year aboard the_ Enterprise_, and they had just helped rescue a Terran colony. The girl had been brought in so that the Doctor could treat her for starvation. In the time she was aboard, the young woman grew attached to Spock, following him around (on legs too feeble to really carry her), and talked to him endlessly. Spock was enthralled by this, and she could see more than a hint of a smile spreading across Spock's face in askance when the young girl asked (seriously, while holding onto the tips of her ears as if she could pull points out on her own) if she would ever get ears like his.

Forty-two:

After T'Pring's death on Vulcan, Sarek briefly toyed with the idea of arranging another marriage for his son. With so few Vulcans left, he felt it logical. Nyota saw that coming a mile away and didn't hesitate in her decision to kiss him on the Transporter Pad. It was more for him, than for his father (whom, okay, she did feel a little more derision for than she really let on), but it was also a message to any one else willing to try and take Spock away from her. She was going to monitor him; she was going to be there for him; she was going to keep him. There would be no other way. She felt a little justified when he thanked her, acknowledging her feelings, and more than that, thanking her for them.

Forty-three:

Spock's has to sleep on matching bedding. Well, he doesn't have to, more like he_ can't_ sleep unless the bedding matches. It his own weird thing, and so completely not Vulcan, because they can be hideously fashion backward, and not match in the most horrid of ways (black and brown….really?). Spock's bedding has to match, though.

Forty-four:

Scotty bought him a toy one Shore Leave (why is a complete mystery, but they suspect he was drunk). A bobble-head, to be exact, of some exotic creature that probably doesn't exist at all, this quadrant of space or otherwise, and to be honest it kinda looks like a vampire-penguin mixed with an alligator-hippopotamus. Spock keeps it on his desk, though, in the confines of his office in the Science Labs. One afternoon she goes down there to bring him lunch (or dinner to some) and she sees him tapping its head (not talking to it like he did with Soliel, but it looks like a close thing). He picks it up and examines it closely before he notices that she's watching.

Forty-five:

He turns a blind eye the night in gamma shift when he finds Sulu and Chekov making out in the Botany Lab, even though several of his underlings had complained that they needed certain pollens to test and retest. He does, however, suggest to Kirk that Chekov has been having troubles with his roommate, and that Sulu lost his when the last crew exchange took place two months ago (seriously, how everyone remains to be clueless about everyone else's relationship…total mystery).

Forty-six:

Spock is unsure whether he has the ability to have children. He was genetically engineered, a child of science, not of a consummate love. He says that he sees no reason why he should not be able to. After all, he has all of the working utilities, though those aren't the words he used. But he's never tested, and until he and Nyota had entered into their fourth year of partnership, he was not fazed by the possibility that he would never reproduce. However, he admits to her that he thinks it may cause some strain between them. Nyota just smiles and tells him that she may look like the mothering type, but Kirk is child enough for her, and that she's just pleased to share his company.

Forty-seven:

He has only been to Vulcan II three times, and each time he was unable to stay past sunset. Vulcan had no moon. This one has four.

Forty-eight:

Spock has been grounded before, when he was twelve. It was shortly after his first and only physical fight as a young boy, but he was grounded for a day. The sad, kind of cute thing is that he was only grounded from his extra-curricular studies.

Forty-nine:

He likes it when Nyota settles into his lap, making herself cozy. When she wraps her arms around his neck, he settles his hands onto her, one on the bare skin of her legs and the other holding her firmly by the waist. She can feel the contentment and happiness seeping out through his skin, and all doubts melt away. They were made to be like this; she can feel his thoughts coursing through, around, over her, like warm water or sweet wind. She pulls him closer to her and herself closer to him, entangling them further than they already are and making promises without words. They can't last forever. It's illogical to even think that, but they can last for as long as she's here, and that will have to be enough.

Fifty:

He shouldn't love her, but he does and he tells her so…as often as logically possible.

A/N: Yeah…ya wanna review? Yes, no? No, yes? It's okay if you don't…I mean, we love reviews, but seriously…no pressure…only yeah…pressure. Give in to our wicked ways.

InnocentGuilt


End file.
